Wilders are Resilient
For over 50 years we have held an annual Wilder family reunion, and for quite some time we have held it in June. This year, due to safety measures implemented to keeping us all healthy and free from the Covid 19 illness, we have chosen to post pone the union until June 2021. I will miss spending time with everyone under the shade of the big trees at Woodson bridge, catching up on the past year activities, while sampling tasty salads and snacks everyone brings to share. There are many elderly Wilder cousins we care dearly for, so in the spirit of love, we keep our distance, doing our best to help them stay healthy. A minor obstacle to overcome, so we can enjoy their company for many years.
I don’t let the challenges we are dealing with due to Covid 19, get me down. Why, because I'm part Wilder, and the Wilders are resilient people. If part of your DNA makeup is Wilder, then I bet you too are resilient. The same genes that helped our Wilder family endure and overcome many challenges are with us and help us today. I know because I hear it in the stories passed down. I know it because I have dug a little deeper into our Wilder history.
Our founding father Thomas Wilder was from England. Recent DNA testing shows that our Wilder family line, unlike the “Nunhide, castle born--Edward Wilder” line is not descended from Bohemian mercenaries, but is a family line that traces back to the original people of the British Isles.
Our Wilder ancestors settled on the British Isles around 2000 BC. Known as the "Atlantic Celts", they lived through the bronze age and iron age. They survived Viking raids, the Roman occupation, Anglo-Saxon invasion, Black plague and a myriad of other challenges that were thrown at the tribal peoples of Britain. I marvel at their ability to adapt and survive in the face of adversity.
After centuries of navigating many ups and downs, our Wilder family encountered one more challenge in the 17th Century. That challenge was religion persecution. Like the puritans 20 years before them, our Wilder family was confronted with the challenges of the church in England. In the year 1639, at the young age of 20, Thomas Wilder decided to leave England, boarded a ship for the new settlements in Massachusetts, and began again.
Thomas married in Charleston Massachusetts, now known as Boston. Within 10 years, Thomas, his wife and children joined a small group of like-minded farmers to settle on land recently purchased from the local native tribe. An area called Nashawa. This place is now known as Lancaster, Massachusetts. In the coming years, the Wilders and their neighbors would be confronted with raids from the native people. They would loose livestock, homes would be burned, and family members slain. But they would continue on, rebuild and start a new. When there wasn’t any land left to purchase, Thomas' grand children moved to Vermont. After a few generations, in 1820 our great, great, great grandfather, his father and brothers would leave Vermont, settling for a short time in western New York. After New York, they moved on to Ohio, then Illinois. They were always looking for good land to farm, raise sheep, goats or cattle. They settled for a time in western Missouri in the years right before the Civil War. After the war, they pulled up stakes and made way for California. One brother taking his father and family on a wagon train, the other riding the iron train with his family to California. They started over again in a new place, hopeful they could find good land for farming.
It seems like our family has always known when to move on, try again. Some of our cousins stayed in the Midwest, some branched off to Oregon and Washington. All in all, it’s optimism, and hopefulness that keeps us moving forward, confident we can endure the hardships and work it out where we are, or start a new someplace else. So, this weekend as we miss our reunion, we can know this is just another opportunity to think positively and know in our hearts we’ll see each other again soon.
P.S. Those Wilders also know how to rock a hair net. Way to go Great Grandma Sally Wilder.
About the Photo:
Photo of the Wilder siblings taken at our family reunion in the late 1930's.
Top Left to Right: John Riley Wilder, James Henry Wilder, Josiah Huntley Wilder
Bottom Left to Right: Hannah Elizabeth Wilder-Raglin, Sally Ann Wilder-Wilder, Lillian Catherine Wilder-Zumwalt. Sister Mary Jane Wilder-Anderson is not pictured as she passed away in 1908. Brother Abner Hurl Wilder the eldest of the boys is also not shown.
These are the children of James Hill Wilder and Caroline Huntley. They are grandchildren of Elias Wilder and Turzah Fuller-Wilder the couple that left Vermont. James, his wife Caroline, father Elias and mother Turzah were the family mentioned above that took the wagon train from Missouri to California in 1864. The Photo is shared here, courtesy of our dear cousin Faye Wilder-Williams, grand daughter to Sally Ann Wilder-Wilder.